Pistachio & Rosewater Meringues

We’re going to a dinner party tomorrow night and, having offered to bring pudding, I’ve been scouring my cookbooks for something suitably summery.

I have long salivated over the amazing meringues in Yotam Ottolenghi’s eponymous recipe book so decided to finally give them a whirl. This was mildly daunting as (a) I usually stick to a tried-and-tested Delia Smith recipe, and (b) I was making them in the Aga for the first time and my baking experiments in this have had decidedly mixed results to date (a cause of much frustration).

As you can see, I had some success on this occasion which I am rather pleased/relieved about. Should you be tempted to try them out too, you can find the recipe here. I’d add the following thoughts and advice which you may find helpful:

When heating the sugar, watch it like a hawk as my first attempt ended up in the bin; I’d recommend checking every couple of minutes.

It feels as though the egg whites are being whipped for much longer than usual. Persevere though as the end result is wonderfully dense and holds its shape really well on cooking (therefore make sure you’re happy with how they look when putting them in the oven as mine are possibly a little more ‘rustic’ than I’d like).

For any other Aga owners, I had to do some cross-referencing for cooking times and ended up following Amy Willcock’s instructions from ‘The Aga Bible’ which involved putting them in the Simmering Oven on the fourth set of runners for 1½ to 2 hours before removing to cool.

I’m currently debating whether to serve them with raspberries, pomegranate and whipped cream, or the healthier-sounding rhubarb compote and Greek yoghurt. Either way, I’m hoping they are beautifully crisp on the outside and delightfully marshmallowy within.